87 replies to this topic

[Vahnn]

Owlfeathers, on 21 April 2013 - 04:08 PM, said:

No.

[Caustic Canid]

jay35, on 21 April 2013 - 07:54 PM, said:

I don't even use the Alpha Strike key. Ever. And I would say absolutely No to removing it. It's a staple of the Mech Warrior feature set.

And yes, you're getting all your accuracy in one shot, but if you miss that shot you just wasted your chance, you are stuck until your weapons recycle so you're unable to fend off anything in the meantime, and you just ramped your heat up significantly.

It already has built-in tradeoffs. People asking for more downsides are likely just your typical QQers looking for something else to complain about or upset because they can't just charge straight at an enemy with no consideration for tactics and then they die and rage about it.

You make a valid argument about the downsides, however I feel like the downsides do not equally weigh the upside.

also your statement that anyone who wants to get rid of something is just qqing can be turned around and used against you. Anyone who makes such a fuss about the mere suggestion of one function being taken out of the game, is probably a habitual abuser of said function, and doesn't want his "one shot kill" button to be taken away.

Edited by Caustic Canid, 21 April 2013 - 10:17 PM.

[Victor Morson]

You know, Google Image Search has gotten very impressive. I was able to locate a picture of the OP in about 10 seconds:

Edited by Victor Morson, 21 April 2013 - 09:36 PM.

[Odanan]

Caustic Canid, on 21 April 2013 - 04:05 PM, said:

OK. I'll start by saying and admitting that I too am guilty of alpha striking my weapons at enemy mechs. It's just too easy NOT to do. As this is the case, there are many cheese builds that can strip a mech of its center torso armor in two shots, because all of the weapons converge on the same spot.

I know it would probably **** off quite a few people, but my suggestion would be to get rid of group fire. Put a small (like 1/4 second) pause between individual weapons fire. So that people HAVE to land each shot. Maybe even add (gasp) weapon kick or something so people using more powerful weapons have to compensate for each shot. It is my opinion that this would more closely emulate the "random hit locations" of the TT. or at least give people a fighting chance.

If you're good enough to land six individually fired PPC's in my CT then fine. You deserve the kill.

I know that alpha strikes are part of the b/t universe, but at this point, mechs are being BUILT around them.

Anyway. My 2 cents.

I reluctantly agree with the removing of Alpha Strike (group fire) - for the sake of a gameplay more like the TT (and more balanced).

But you are wrong in one thing: this group fire is a part of the Mechwarrior video game series (from the MW2 on), not the Battletech Universe. (in TT, you always "chain fire")

[King Arthur IV]

have you ever seen a hunchback 4p's lasers on "hunch" fire at an angle instead of parallel with the hunch? that is what is wrong with weapons convergence
torso weapons should never be able to achieve 100% convergence, unless there is some kind of mini actuator that can provide small angles of fire.

[Jonathan Paine]

We don't have to remove alpha strike, nor do have to roll dice. Alpha strikes should do part of its damage to the aimed at body part, the rest to neighboring areas. Chain fire should remain accurate, as long as there is a small delay between shots. I'm surprised that posters that I believe to be excellent pilots are so negative to having to aim each shot rather than a six PPC do or die alpha strike.

[Merrik Starchaser]

Caustic Canid, on 21 April 2013 - 04:05 PM, said:

OK. I'll start by saying and admitting that I too am guilty of alpha striking my weapons at enemy mechs. It's just too easy NOT to do. As this is the case, there are many cheese builds that can strip a mech of its center torso armor in two shots, because all of the weapons converge on the same spot.

I know it would probably **** off quite a few people, but my suggestion would be to get rid of group fire. Put a small (like 1/4 second) pause between individual weapons fire. So that people HAVE to land each shot. Maybe even add (gasp) weapon kick or something so people using more powerful weapons have to compensate for each shot. It is my opinion that this would more closely emulate the "random hit locations" of the TT. or at least give people a fighting chance.

If you're good enough to land six individually fired PPC's in my CT then fine. You deserve the kill.

I know that alpha strikes are part of the b/t universe, but at this point, mechs are being BUILT around them.

Anyway. My 2 cents.

While I appreciate that you want a 100% battletech simulator, and while I might even agree that such a sim would be cool. you are barking up the wrong tree... hell PGI is putting 3rd person in to attract a more mainstream audience, and audience who will not understand why you would ever make silly changes like that to a first person shooter. if you want that game (and I certainly do) you may just need to create a new IP.

[MustrumRidcully]

Owlfeathers, on 21 April 2013 - 04:08 PM, said:

No.

Don't think I really need to elaborate on this.

P.S. Even if this was implemented, you can just bind all weapons to whatever key you want, which has the same effect as an alpha strike.

Not if you put in code that forces you to fire one weapon after another. It's not like global cooldowns like this haven't been implemented in other games.

[p00k]

Jonathan Paine, on 21 April 2013 - 10:35 PM, said:

We don't have to remove alpha strike, nor do have to roll dice. Alpha strikes should do part of its damage to the aimed at body part, the rest to neighboring areas. Chain fire should remain accurate, as long as there is a small delay between shots. I'm surprised that posters that I believe to be excellent pilots are so negative to having to aim each shot rather than a six PPC do or die alpha strike.

that's how 3025 did it, group fire damage was applied 50% to the targeted component, 50% spread among adjacent components. good pilots simply went to chain fire and rapid clicked. it's really not that much harder

honestly if you believe removing alpha strike will accomplish anything you're delusional.

[Caustic Canid]

p00k, on 21 April 2013 - 10:57 PM, said:

that's how 3025 did it, group fire damage was applied 50% to the targeted component, 50% spread among adjacent components. good pilots simply went to chain fire and rapid clicked. it's really not that much harder

honestly if you believe removing alpha strike will accomplish anything you're delusional.

I understand thats how it worked in the TT, but I'm trying to offer a suggestion/solution for an FPS style mech sim, based on a TT game. Built in inaccuracy would be more vehemently hated than being forced to chain fire weapons.

Also, I was saying that there would be a small cooldown between each weapon being fired, not a ton, like 1/4 second, but enough that you might have trouble placing all shots in one location. you could alternatively make higher damage/impact based weapons have a small amount of kick(cursor shake) that would make placing all of your weapons in one location at a long range much harder.

In fact, you could keep Alpha strikes, and just make it so that when it fires an entire group, it fires them all 10ms apart from each other (like a burst from a 3 round burst gun) the cursor shake would cause there to be a bit of inaccuracy built in, basically achieving the same effect as a cone of fire.

[LordDante]

i want beta strike !

[Pelador]

+1 for gamma strike

[Teralitha]

Caustic Canid, on 21 April 2013 - 04:05 PM, said:

OK. I'll start by saying and admitting that I too am guilty of alpha striking my weapons at enemy mechs. It's just too easy NOT to do. As this is the case, there are many cheese builds that can strip a mech of its center torso armor in two shots, because all of the weapons converge on the same spot.

I know it would probably **** off quite a few people, but my suggestion would be to get rid of group fire. Put a small (like 1/4 second) pause between individual weapons fire. So that people HAVE to land each shot. Maybe even add (gasp) weapon kick or something so people using more powerful weapons have to compensate for each shot. It is my opinion that this would more closely emulate the "random hit locations" of the TT. or at least give people a fighting chance.

If you're good enough to land six individually fired PPC's in my CT then fine. You deserve the kill.

I know that alpha strikes are part of the b/t universe, but at this point, mechs are being BUILT around them.

Anyway. My 2 cents.

Alpha striking itself is fine, its because heat efficiency is far too good that it allows powerful alphastrikes to be fired frequently, where in a perfect setting, heat should be balancing such builds preventling them from firing often or forcing frequent shutdowns or forcing more heat balanced builds to be made instead.

Edited by Teralitha, 22 April 2013 - 01:11 AM.

[stjobe]

As so many others have said, it's not the alpha strike itself that's problematic, nor that you can do pinpoint damage with it; the problem is the broken heat system that allows you to alpha again and again and again with silly amounts of weaponry.

[Roadbuster]

Willie Sauerland, on 21 April 2013 - 04:18 PM, said:

The problem is not the alpha strike per se, but the ability to overheat and not take any penalties. Fix the heat and you fix the problem.

Which brings us to the matter of DHS.
I have no proof, but if, for example, http://mwo.smurfy-net.de/ really uses ingame values, this would mean that in addition of giving 1.4 heat dissipation DHS also increase the heat threshold by 1.4 which they shouldn't.

I don't know about the base threshold, but that value should be fixed and not vary with the number of heatsinks.
That way people could still boat 6PPCs,... but they won't be able to fire them all at once without overheating. Instead they can fire again faster.
This would get rid of high heat alpha strikes with SRMs, LRMs, and energy weapons. Ballistics still have the weight and ammo as limiting factor.

I think we would see more builds with a mixed weapon loadout that way.

[Caustic Canid]

stjobe, on 22 April 2013 - 01:18 AM, said:

As so many others have said, it's not the alpha strike itself that's problematic, nor that you can do pinpoint damage with it; the problem is the broken heat system that allows you to alpha again and again and again with silly amounts of weaponry.

I understand what you're saying, but I've spectated plenty of people who fire once and shut down over and over. Would the heat system being fixed cause someone firing 6ppcs to simply explode from heat? Or would they just continue what they are doing now, just at a slower pace? If heat dissipates faster like people are suggesting, it would still result in fire/shutdown/fire/shutdown, which due to the double armor, doesn't allow you to punish someone as much for shutting down as you should be able to.

Edited by Caustic Canid, 22 April 2013 - 01:40 AM.

[Kurayami]

Nope bad op. bad.

to people who repeat "aiming is op" - this game have 0 aiming ZERO. with no recoil, instant convergence even for weapons that should be hardmounted and have fixed firing point, no shaking etc - this is just "target center - push button" or COD:MECHWARRIOR so seriously go eff yourselves with a chainsword.

introduce hvy actuators that will move weapons to converge on one spot (i bet you forgot those things right? 1 crit+1tonn per 4 tons of weaponry for IS), make them not instant, add penalty for running and jumping, add recoil, add heat effects and them we'll talk about "how op is aiming"

[Yokaiko]

Teralitha, on 22 April 2013 - 01:10 AM, said:

Alpha striking itself is fine, its because heat efficiency is far too good that it allows powerful alphastrikes to be fired frequently, where in a perfect setting, heat should be balancing such builds preventling them from firing often or forcing frequent shutdowns or forcing more heat balanced builds to be made instead.

You are confusing efficiency and capacity.

Efficiency is crap
Capacity is possibly to high.

[MW Waldorf Statler]

This is not a dice board game, this is about SKILL .. you have been here now twice the armor, and the TT is still not enough players ... 10 minutes to rule on an opponent and rotate the torso in slow motion? best to make it even aiming in slow motion and projectiles that need 2 minutes from the target, so that even the slowest TT player copes with MWO? Here you save any dice the rump, heir you have to play together and not just luck of the dice and data sheets with other people, here is one response speed and tactical flexibility to adapt to other players ... This is a shooter, and this at the to measure TT, is as if one wants to do a real-time strategy game of Chess.The only problem is the heatmanagment and fail of Heatdamage for overheating .

translated from german
Das hier ist kein Würfel-Brettspiel , hier geht es um SKILL ..man hat hier nun schon die doppelte Panzerung ,und des ist den TT Spielern immer noch nicht genug ... 10 Minuten um auf einen Gegner zu regieren und den Torso im Zeitlupentempo zu drehen ? am besten noch Aiming im Zeitlupentempo und Geschosse, die 2 Minuten brauchen bis sie das Ziel treffen,damit auch noch der langsamste TT Spieler mit MWO zurecht kommt ? Hier rettet euch kein Würfel das Hinterteil ,heir müsst ihr mit anderen menschen zusammen spielen und nicht nur mit Würfelglück und Datenbögen ,hier zählt reaktiongeschwindigkeit und taktische Flexibilität ,sich auf andere Spieler einstellen zu können ...Die ist ein Shooter, und diesen an dem TT zu messen ,ist als wenn man aus Schach ein Echtzeit strategiespiel machen will

Edited by CSJ Ranger, 22 April 2013 - 02:18 AM.

[Accursed Richards]

Spike Brave, on 21 April 2013 - 05:14 PM, said:

I see people saying in TT the damage is spread. Am I the only one who used a targeting computer? All the damage in one place.

Which was reduced because of the tonnage of the targeting computer, and which still took an attack penalty if you tried to snipe a particular location.